158 TALES AND TRAITS OF SPORTING LIFE. 



Would any fierce neck-and-neck set-to with the Major 

 and his grey mare compare, for one moment, with such a 

 tete-a-tete ? 



We undertake to answer, for any young" gentleman 

 from eighteen to eight-and-twenty — '^Unquestionably 

 not j there is a profanity in putting it. " 



'^ Faint heart never won fair lady " is, after all, about 

 one of the truest things that was ever said j for fair lady, 

 however faint-hearted herself, can never forgive the 

 whisper of such a crime in her champion. Poor Georgy 

 who had been encoring '^ 0, Summer Night !" participa- 

 ting in polkas, and getting as happy as could be, was a 

 miserable sinner the moment " the gentlemen" came up- 

 stairs. The old Squire grumbled it out all at once, and 

 tried to sneer at his son and heir the whole evening 

 afterwards ; while the tell-tale Major looked on for half- 

 an-hour, and then " cut " most ignominiously, really 

 sorry for the mischief he had occasioned. As for meek, 

 gentle Miss Emmy, instead of oomfort and consolation 

 for the condemned one, she became amongst the most 

 contemptuous and resolved of the ladies of the jury. 

 *^To make her the excuse for his cowardice, indeed! 

 Why, if he had possessed anything like a spirit, he would 

 have just ridden old Pippin over five or six of the most 

 impracticable parts of the brook, and then turned away 

 from the hounds, after having proved to all the majors 

 and minors out how he could eclipse them, if J' — She 

 didn't say exactly this, but she looked it, which was 

 worse, for there was no answering' such a look ; and so 

 the rejected bowed himself off to bed, to tumble and toss 

 and think over the strength of woman's love, and the 

 pure, imalloyed pleasures of the chase. 



